this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Economics

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Home sales are down. So why are prices at an all-time high? (www.npr.org)
submitted 1 week ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/economics@lemmy.world
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Home prices hit an all-time high in June, even as the housing market continued its post-pandemic slump.

The median price for an existing home sold last month was $435,300, besting the previous record, set in June 2024, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. But overall, sales numbers were at a nine-month low, seasonally adjusted. Sales in June decreased 2.7% from a month earlier.

How can prices be so high when the market is so slow?

"Today's housing market is really haves and have-nots," says Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

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[–] invertedspear@lemmy.zip 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Make a new law that a corporation cannot own single family homes and individuals cannot own more than two single family homes, condos, or cabins and the housing issue is solved. People can still have a vacation home, or a single rental property, a few for a married couple, but they don’t get to own 50 homes anymore unless they want to run an apartment complex. I do think there is societal value in rentable single family homes, but it’s gone too far.

Give them one year to divest, and start charging a tax if they don’t that starts at 25% of the homes assessed value, and raises 25% every year thereafter.

[–] Scolding7300@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And ban airbnb for longer than X months per property per year

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 week ago

X weeks. :-)

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 34 points 1 week ago

Article misses the main cause: corporate buyers. Calling them "cash buyers" to bury the problem.

[–] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Because greed is an integral part of capitalism?

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago

Lol why? It's a mystery! No one knows! I'm so fucking tired of this reality.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Prices are at an all-time high. So why are home sales down?

[–] rando@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Currency debasement by your government

/thread

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 1 points 1 week ago

It can take several months to close a house sale. Maybe the prices will change with a delay?

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 1 week ago

Median price for new construction is now cheaper?

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sticky prices probably play a major role.

"Sticky prices" refer to prices that remain fixed or change very slowly despite shifts in supply and demand or changes in the overall price level. This phenomenon is also known as nominal rigidity, and it contrasts with the theoretical expectation of prices adjusting quickly to market conditions. Sticky prices can be upwardly sticky, meaning they are resistant to falling even if market conditions suggest a price decrease." (Gemini)

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This fucking place. Downvoting factual information just because the quote is from AI. Thanks OP! Learned a new word today!

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I downvoted it because it had no explanatory value whatsoever.

[–] prau@social.vivaldi.net -5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@MicroWave

Blame it all on the central bank and #statism in general.

Read/listen to #Mises and #Rothbard!

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This, the fact that we have a fiat currency, causes scarce items to be more valuable than they otherwise would be as a savings vehicle, and not as a utility.

On a hard money standard, housing would not be nearly this overvalued because the money would hold its value properly.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

In a sane country with a sane group of politicians implementing evidence-based policy, we would have wages that kept up with housing inflation, prevented blackrock and friends from buying up all of the housing, and built higher density housing in cities as a pressure release valve so that we had much more supply.

There are many factors and fiat currency isn't really one of them.

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I mean, generally speaking in our fiat system housing prices go up so that houses keep their value (if prices didn't rise with inflation, then houses would loose value over time).

The reason why we see housing prices not coming down right now (if I had to take a guess) is high interest rates. Since a lot of buyers have locked in low interest rates the sale price for existing homeowners must offset the new interest rates, otherwise they'll loose money on the sale.

This would be true in a hard money standard too, as even if the prices of the houses remained constant, higher interest rates would make mortgage payments higher (thus increasing the true cost of the house). So existing home owners would increase prices to offset higher interest rates.